WHO declares diesel fumes cause cancer

Diesel exhaust causes cancer, which could make exhaust as severe a public health threat as secondhand smoke, the World Health Organization’s cancer agency said Tuesday. The risk of getting cancer from diesel fumes is small, but since so many people breathe in the fumes in some way, the science panel said raising the status of diesel exhaust to carcinogen from “probable carcinogen” was an important shift, the Associated Press reported. “It’s on the same order of magnitude as passive smoking,” said Kurt Straif, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). “This could be another big push for countries to clean up exhaust from diesel engines.”